


Young and On Fire

by singasongofdestiel



Category: Folk Songs, Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Falling In Love, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Moving In Together, Songfic, billy the kid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singasongofdestiel/pseuds/singasongofdestiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is waiting for Castiel to arrive for a brief visit, but he doesn't want him to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Young and On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Billy The Kid's lovely song 'Young + On Fire' (go check it out it's seriously good).

It was one of those summers that stretch out, rolling in waves of succulent heat and honeyed air, endlessly and endlessly, until they end. 

Dean wandered around his apartment—it was brand new and he had barely lived in it. The air tongued the edges of the whitewashed walls, not quite daring to slip through the open windows enough to warm the rooms. It felt unhomely and empty, but he still paid the rent on it— he had to live somewhere, and this was as good as anywhere. 

He wandered because he was waiting, his socked feet whispering the time passing onto the linoleum floors. After two minutes and thirty-six seconds he let himself re-remember his last few dates. Meeting the dark-haired-blue-eyed man by chance when the wind smashed a page of thesis against Dean’s face; rose-tinted cheeks over that first awkward coffee; holding hands in the park in green-licked shadows; an awkward kiss goodnight. His favourite so far had been the ice-cream van—when Castiel had timidly asked to try some of Dean’s cone and Dean had intentionally met him in the middle, flustering the academic into drawing back. When Dean repeated this little tease a gloriously sticky make out session ensued, melting the rest of Dean’s ice cream—‘forcing’ them to share Cas’ cone too. He grinned at the sugarspun memories and walked back into the kitchen to check the time. 

He had had to take his watch off in order to focus on anything other than his wrist, ditto his phone had been left in his bedroom (although obviously not on silent, just in case). The clock on the oven told him that he still had approximately eight minutes to wait. He slumped back to the living room and folded over the arm rest. He did seven repeats of a strangely desperate sit-up-type-thing but soon gave up, his head lolling back over the edge.

The heat sat sullenly on his face, and his mad exercises had ruined his hair. He lay utterly still, refusing to count his breaths. 

This worked for about two minutes—by then his blood had started pulsing in his head in a way that reminded him of the continual but slow time frame he was in. 

He walked around again, went to the loo again, did his hair again, brushed his teeth again, refused to check the time again.

He went once more to look at the space he had cleared last night, after his phone call with Cas. 

They had been planning their day in the way that young people do when are too far apart and too full of emotions to do anything but dream through efficiently realistic plans. The dark voice had sunk through the phone line, saying “Let’s make a map and put all the cities we’ve been on there. Maybe that distance will make us feel closer somehow.” 

Dean knew that it wouldn’t, that only having this strangely intangible human in his arms could do that, but he had cleared a space anyway. It would make Cas happy, and it would be fun. 

The spot he had cleared was in the centre of the wall opposite his bed, the art from the neighbours’ kid relegated to the edges. 

He looked at the empty wall, measured it in thumb-lengths, index-finger-lengths and was 17 fingertip-lengths across when he heard an engine outside. 

He stoppered his breath and listened as it became louder, willing it not to be anyone but— 

The hum crescendoed and cut, right outside his door. He was a mountainside, his thoughts waterfalling but his limbs immoveable. 

There was a pause while the doorbell was pressed and no sound came out. Then an irritated but well-mannered knock. The mountain quaked and crumbled, Dean rushed to the door, near-sliding in his socks. 

He opened the door to a sunshot silhouette which immediately grumbled at him.

“You should really get a new doorbell.”

Dean laughed in joy at his polite pessimist, “I should.” 

“And you should put a note up to say it doesn’t work.”

“I should.” He agreed again, “but I won’t unless you make me.” 

Castiel sighed and raised his eyebrows at Dean expectantly. As good as he looked with his tan and the highlights that were kindly donated to him every time the sun so much as peeped around the clouds, Dean formed a rather large obstacle to getting through the door. When he received no response, Cas simply walked past the other man and left his belongings behind him. 

Dean followed after; map under one arm and suitcase in the other. 

He looked at the bag. It was just the right size for the two nights that Cas could (okay, would) leave his studies.  Sometimes Dean wished he wasn’t so incredibly dedicated to the intricacies of the 16th Century French Court. He knew it was selfish, but the way that Castiel looked standing In front of that big open space they were going to design made him want to lock all the doors and never let him out of his sight again.

He moved up behind Cas and indulged himself in his presence, letting his hands lightly roam over the hidden furrows of muscle. 

The focused man swatted his hands, but absently enough that he could be ignored.

“Stop it, we have work to do.”

Dean moved to kissing the back of Cas’ neck— so teasing and modest in its high shirt collar.

“Dean, we have a _project._ ”

The petulant tone only made Dean smile as he wrapped his arms firmly around his visitor.

“We only have today, though.” 

Cas turned, smoothly extricating himself from the cage of cutesiness to look Dean in the eye.

“Exactly. We only have today and we said we’d do this, Dean.” 

Begrudging acceptance forced Dean to gather the map. At least, it was begrudging until the point that the dry voice continued with, “We have to _night_ for other things.”

 

* * *

 

It was morning, barely. 

That strange colour between green and pink, with an undercurrent of palest blue, was sprinkled between the clouds. Dean lay silently—a stop motion of desire and loss. 

The trouble was that he wanted everything. He wanted the wildscape dreams and ridiculous afternoons filled with meaningless projects, he wanted the fumbling new-relationship awkwardness that distance had prolonged, he wanted the romantic edge of rendezvous that were almost over before they began, he wanted everything of how they were now. But more than that, more than anything, he wanted consistency—to not have to wake up crazily early in the morning to memorise Cas’ face for another month, to not have to cram as much passion into one midnight to make up for twenty, to not have to say goodbye. 

Nature’s absurd lighting plan filled the room with the certainty that summer was over. Between the demands of academia and Dean’s job they had barely squeezed a full month together during the sun-claimed months.

Today, Cas was leaving again. 

Dean resurfaced from introspection, falling instantly under the cover of the other, now open, pair of eyes. 

Cas shifted beside him.

“You look unhappy, Dean.” There was no question there, just a statement which Dean could choose to acknowledge or not. Salinity swelled in his lungs. 

Soft and small, “I was wondering if I would ever see you again.” 

Cas looked at the man, utterly at a loss. The idea that he would give up this astounded him. He gripped Dean so tightly, as if he were trying to drag the two of them out of hell. After taking a few moments to remove the break in his throat, he replied with two words that were just as soft, but far larger than Dean’s had been: 

“I promise.” 

Dean sighed and his thoughts settled. Cas was the kind of person who kept every promise worth keeping, and that promise was worth it.

Secure in the arms of the man who loved him, an obscure thought poked into Dean’s brain. He didn’t believe in marriage but… 

He could see him and Cas throwing a party, and he would invite all of Cas’ old friends and the people he grew up with—the ones that recurred in the stories he told when full of nostalgia and slowly oxidised love. Dean wanted to invite everyone that Castiel never saw anymore and look them right in the eye to show them how happy Cas was. And to make sure, of course, that he was as happy as Dean believed.

 

* * *

Summer had fully yielded to winter’s subtle seduction. The lights were on in the apartment, trapping the outside world behind reflections in the windows. 

The reflections danced like candle flames, willowing and melding to a rock song not designed for waltzing. Their feet sparked over their tiles, fingers cross-hatched into one stable grasp, while the world burned in electric yellow.

Their counters and their oven and their oven clock blurred around them. The myopia of synthetic-lit bliss had swallowed them ever since Cas had driven up the coast and moved into Dean’s apartment. 

He had understood Dean’s refusal to move for anyone again, just as he had understood his need for reassurance the last time he had left. The last time he would ever leave. 

Dean, for his part, looked at their clasped hands and imagined matching gold bands onto them, extolled by the light. 

They could book a few shows somewhere not too far away, and they could get on a plane hand-in-hand and still in their suits. Cas could meet all of Dean’s friends from way back, could meet Bobby and Sam and Jo— the ones who had always believed that he would wind up happy, and had told him as much.

They would know he was happy. 

No, Dean didn’t believe in marriage, but they could get married. 

The couple danced, their reflections kaleidoscoping into a self-contained paradise. They were in love. They were young, and they were on fire.


End file.
